Chinese Schools Track Students With 'Intelligent Uniforms'

Given the country's recent track record in terms of surveillance technologies and privacy limitations, perhaps it's just a way to get people used to feel monitored from an early age. Or maybe it was just the quick thinking of some local control freak.

Whatever the reason, according to an article published last Thursday by state media Global Times, eleven schools in the country's south western province of Guizhou and in the neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have made students wear "smart uniforms" by local tech firm Guanyu Technology.

Chinese students. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)ASSOCIATED PRESS

The uniforms contain two chips that can track the students' exact location and monitor their behavior, for instance by activating an alarm if they detect that a students has fallen asleep in class or if they leave school without permission.

Whenever students wear the uniforms, "the school authorities receive recorded accurate timing of their entry and exit and automatically send the data to parents and teachers," Lin Zongwu, principal of No. 11 School of Renhuai in Guizhou Province, told state-backed tabloid Global Times.

There's no use in trying to game the system by swapping uniforms: a facial recognition system installed at the school entrance matches a student’s face with the data contained in the chips, and triggers an alarm if an anomaly is detected.

The experiment seems to have been going on for a while now, at least since the fall of 2016 and it is said to have "largely increased" school attendance, but not everyone is happy with the results. "Is this going to school or going to prison?," asked a citizen on social media platform Sina Weibo, while another wondered whether in the future adults, too, will be asked to wear such clothing.

The Global Times explained that the uniforms might cause some privacy concerns "as the system can locate students even in non-school hours."

According to Lin Zongwu, a choice was made not to track children outside school, but the technology might prove useful to nail down their location if they are missing or skipping classes. Just like the Find feature of your iPhone, in principle. But definitely creepier.

I'm a freelance journalist covering technology for several outlets, both in English (Zdnet, techPresident) and Italian (La Stampa, l'Espresso, Corriere della Sera and others). I was a Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism fellow in 2013. You can find my research on ...